


Revenant

by adamwhatareyouevendoing



Series: Meanwhile in Mercia [2]
Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22820860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adamwhatareyouevendoing/pseuds/adamwhatareyouevendoing
Summary: Through force of will and the strength of Aethelflaed's conviction, Aldhelm defies the odds and lives. Recovering in the care of those closest to her, he soon finds that facing death is easier than the prospect of surrendering all he has gained.
Relationships: Aethelflaed Lady of Mercia/Aldhelm (The Last Kingdom)
Series: Meanwhile in Mercia [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640533
Comments: 29
Kudos: 66





	Revenant

**Author's Note:**

> I'd planned on using parts of this in my upcoming retelling of S4, but it seems like there's gonna be a time jump, and as this follows directly on from the end of S3, I thought it made sense to bulk it up and post it separately.
> 
> I went pretty much supernova about these two last April and haven't stopped since!

A gut wound may be a slow death, but Aldhelm soon finds that recovery is even slower.

He lies there, under furs in Aethelflaed’s bed, the cold of the grave stealing over him, and waits for sleep to claim him. He keeps the image of her face in his mind in case he does not wake to see it again.

He wakes—to an aching abdomen, rather than the sight of her—but it is enough that he is alive.

Hours drag painfully into days. He takes her words and turns them into his own personal mantra alongside the prayers on his lips. _You are not dying. It will heal._

And it does. The moon waxes and wanes, and he lives.

* * *

Aethelflaed’s maid, Sable, is as trustworthy as Aethelflaed promised. She is also kind beyond measure, to forgive his past trespasses against her mistress.

“You take great care in this,” he tells her one day, as she hands him a bowl of broth. She is more accustomed to looking after a child than a wounded man, but she has not once complained in her new duty.

“My Lady asked it of me,” Sable replies, adding extra kindling to the fire. “She thinks very highly of you, if it is not out of place to say so, Lord.”

“I’m glad you did,” he says, exchanging a conspiratorial smile with her over the soup. “You may have come to realise that I feel the same about her.”

He has not told her the real cause of his injury, and she never asks, but he can tell there is no chance she believes it was sustained in an alehouse brawl. She knows enough of his regard for her mistress to guess at his assailant, even if she does not fully understand the reason behind it.

* * *

After a while, his bandages come away clean and he is strong enough to stand—shakily at first, with Sable’s support, then steadily. He makes it as far as the chair across the room, unaided. Sable seems pleased with his progress.

It is a relief to see himself firmly on the road to recovery after so long under furs.

He doesn’t dare imagine what it would be like to have Aethelflaed here, too, encouraging him with gentle words and kind hands. He has not received enough of either to lend any credence to the thought.

* * *

He wakes one morning to find Aelfwynn observing him from across the room, her assessing gaze reminiscent of her mother.

“She wanted to visit you,” Sable shrugs, folding laundry out of a basket. “I didn’t see a reason to deny her.”

He shifts to sit against the headboard to accept the plate of bread and fruit that Sable passes him and smiles across at the girl.

“Sable said you weren’t well, and that’s why you’re not with mother,” Aelfwynn says, each quiet word carefully placed. It is due to her schooling, he knows, but it sounds as though Aethelflaed could be in the room with them.

“That’s right,” he says. “I’m healed now, but I had to stay here and rest, otherwise I’d be with her.”

It does not do to dwell on the fact that the more likely alternative to being bedridden was ending up in a burial plot—nor is it an appropriate conversation to have with a little girl over breakfast.

“I miss her,” Aelfwynn whispers, the quiet confession laced with worry, and he is reminded again of the terrors she has escaped unknowingly and the long separations she has endured for her own safety and that of her mother.

“So do I,” he tells her, and finds he is not ashamed to admit it, even to those closest to her.

* * *

One day they receive word from the battlefield, from Aethelflaed, that the forces of Wessex and Mercia have been victorious against the Danes.

“She writes that they are due to depart soon, and that she will be returning to Winchester alongside her brother,” he reads aloud, Aethelflaed’s letter clutched between trembling fingers. He had only recognised his fear for what it was upon hearing of her safety.

Sable presses his arm in relief. “Is her husband to accompany her?” There is a note of concern in her voice, though whether solely for the welfare of her mistress or also for himself, he isn’t certain.

It would be presumptuous to hold any expectations as to his position in her favour, or read too deeply into how that might transmute into further forgiveness. Presumptuous, and selfish in a way he has not yet been able to counter.

“She does not say. Only that Mercia has been saved, as I asked.” Aethelflaed is not here to see his smile, but it belongs to her anyway, along with all that he is.

He does not dare to speculate openly—he has learnt his lesson in that regard, painfully—but there is no mention of Aethelred’s participation in the battle. He has a strong suspicion that the men were spearheaded solely by the Lady of Mercia.

“We made a deal,” he explains, folding the letter to return to later and warm himself at her words—at the indelible proof she is alive. “She would ride into battle and I would heal. It seems we have both kept our word.”

Sable pats his arm again. Her skin is lined from years of toil, but there is only kindness in her eyes. “From what you have both told me of events, and those I have guessed at, I would say she is blessed to have someone as loyal as you by her side.”

“If either of us is indebted to the other, it is I to her,” he stresses. “She is not beholden to me in any regard. I know she is born of Wessex and only made Mercian, but she has saved the land we both love.”

Even if he is granted the chance to do so, he is not sure he will ever be able to repay her.

“I do not think the land is the only thing she cares for when it comes to Mercia, Lord,” Sable says, softly, as though he may break or bolt.

“Her people, too, of course,” he agrees, and she is kind enough to allow him to pretend that is all she means.

* * *

As the days pass, uncertainty begins to crowd his mind like carrion on a battlefield, haunted by the shame of his past actions.

“Perhaps I ought to return to my own chambers,” he suggests to Sable in one of her rare visits. There are more important matters to attend to now, with the preparations for the return of Edward and his army and the expectation of an imminent coronation, and he would never presume to draw her from her duty.

He has imposed on her kindness long enough, and it would be easier if he were no longer a burden, but he can admit, at least to himself, the true reason he wishes to leave. He has pervaded every corner of Aethelflaed’s life and settled more comfortably than he ought to have allowed.

It will be easier if he is not here upon her return. Tearing himself from her life will be difficult enough without her there to bear witness to it.

Sable, and the divine workings of the universe it seems, unite to conspire against him. Though her eyes are earnest, her voice brooks no argument.

“I have no doubt that when she returns, she will wish to see you here, to know you are well.”

It feels dishonest to keep the truth from her when she knows all else, but he cannot find words to tell her of his largest trespass—his ill-timed and unwise confession of love.

Instead, he covers her hand with his own, and concedes.

* * *

The quiet stillness of late morning is cut by the faint sounds of cheering in the town below, heralding the jubilant return of Edward and his army.

Aethelflaed will be there, among their ranks.

A sharp edge of fear strikes him, settling into a heavy coil of nerves that lingers until the moment the door swings open and she enters.

His heart beats a strong staccato as her eyes settle on him. She looks exhausted, weary from battle and the long days travelling, and she has never been more beautiful.

“You’re here,” she breathes, her expression transforming into relief. She stares at him for a long moment. “You are well?”

“I am, Lady,” he says, and is reassured to see the last line of worry smoothing from her face at the words. “It is all thanks to you—and Sable.”

Her gaze sweeps across his body to fall on the foot of the bed, the hazy afternoon sun streaming across the stone where she first discovered him, bleeding out and waiting for death to claim him.

“I remained two days by your bedside before departing for Mercia,” she murmurs, brow furrowed. Her eyes rise to meet his. “At times I feared you would not wake. I could not have borne it, if it were not for Sable.”

“Nor I,” he agrees, recalling the seizing terror awaiting news of her safety and the painful process of his recovery. It is not something to endure alone.

“She likes you,” Aethelflaed says, the hint of a smile playing at the corner of her lips. She perches on the edge of the bed, close enough that he could reach out and touch her, should she wish it.

“I’m pleased,” he says, returning the smile. He has always smiled more freely around her, and for kinder reasons than before. “I think highly of her too.”

There is something sparking in her eyes, at once tender and testing. “She agrees that you are a good man.”

“Lady—” he warns, throat tight. He wants nothing more than for her to believe it, and he has learnt to be wary of the things he desires, especially when it comes to her.

“You do not have to be afraid, you know—of loving me,” she says. “I won’t hold it against you.”

Her calm words do nothing to steady the sudden racing of his heart. The long days of their separation fall away, quickly becoming only a dim and distant memory, and he is forced to confront the fact that his feelings towards her have not changed.

“Thank you, Lady,” he manages. “Though I confess I did not say it with any expectation beyond speaking the words. You deserved the truth, that is all.”

“It seemed unlikely to be for any other reason,” she tells him, and she is gracious by far to have presumed so, when her experience of marriage has been neither gentle nor kind.

Too late he realises that he ought to have created some distance between them, rather than leaving her no option but to join him on the bed. Perhaps he would be unaware of the impropriety if he were innocent of the thought as well as the deed. He does not have that luxury.

Yet there is no trace of fear in her expression. Instead, her eyes hold an apology that he does not need.

“You must excuse me for remaining silent on the subject, until now. I was unprepared,” she admits, “to confront both the severity of your wound and the strength of your affection. The last man who was stabbed for loving me... I couldn’t have saved him, even if I’d been given the chance to try.”

He remembers the battle at Beamfleot after she escaped capture, and her rage in facing the remaining Thurgilson brother. He is not ignorant of the rumours. “Was he—?”

“Yes,” she says, and though her hands clasp tightly in her lap, her voice is steady when she speaks. “I have a feeling that’s the answer to any question you may have wondered at in that regard, and are yet to ask.”

In lieu of elusive words, he reaches out to cover her hands with his own, a brief press of fingers before he withdraws—an understanding and an assurance all in one. She does not owe him further explanation, and he will not divulge the truth she has chosen to share.

There is only one remaining question he wishes to be certain her answer covers. “Was he kind?”

Her gaze lingers on his hands, now safely returned to his lap. “Yes,” she says, softly. It is a more intimate confession than the last. “He was a good man. Kinder than I’d known before.”

“I’m glad,” he says, with aching throat and swelling heart, wishing he could press her fingers again. He is beyond relieved to hear it. “A child ought to be born of love.”

Her eyes meet his, and it is though she is looking at another through him until the ghost of memory fades.

“I am certain, now,” she says, “that you, too, are a good man.”

He is pinned beneath the weight of conviction in her gaze and cannot find the courage to warn her away, this time. One can only argue against receiving the thing they want most in the world so many times before the risk of losing it becomes too much to bear.

“You once told me that you were to make me like you, yet you do not need to be wary of it any longer.” Her hand settles on his thigh and he is held there, too. “We have, on occasion, both underestimated the danger my husband poses, but this is something we cannot allow him to control. It is my choice to like you. Fear should have no place in that.”

It is easier to believe with the warmth of her skin against his.

“And I didn’t even need to sing,” he says lightly, with a trembling heart that is entirely hers.

As before, the comment draws a laugh from her, but now, unlike the last time, there is nothing to fear from it. Her fond smile stretches wide, cheeks creased with dimples. He does not allow himself to look away. It is a sight to be treasured rather than guarded against, now that she is certain of his regard and her own.

“There is to be a feast this evening, to celebrate our victory,” she tells him. “My husband will not be arriving until tomorrow, for discussions regarding Edward’s coronation. If you are feeling strong enough, I should like it if you would accompany me tonight.”

They both understand the significance of the request. To attend at her side without Aethelred present is a clear sign of where his loyalty lies—proof that the ties between Wessex and Mercia remain as strong as ever.

He places his hand over hers, curling his fingers around her palm and turning it into a clasp.

“I would be honoured, my lady.”


End file.
